


Antifreeze

by littledust



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledust/pseuds/littledust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma helps Raven adjust to life in the Brotherhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Antifreeze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [parma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/parma/gifts).



> This fic features a more metaphorical interpretation of the prompt, "Alcohol. Not the drinking kind though." Antifreeze, of course, helps keep things from freezing. :)

"How does the whole freezing yourself thing work?"

Emma gives her magazine another disdainful flick of the page. "It's not ice," she says without looking up. The lost Xavier girl is a constant irritation of confused misery about her brother, and certainly lacks the mystique she claims in title.

"Your name…"

"Is my actual name. I don't need a silly moniker to feel important."

The incongruously named Mystique recoils, or at least she does on a mental level. For all her youth and subsequent emotional volatility, the girl dons a decent poker face. Must be something to do with her mutant power. Emma spares her a glance, since the magazine is dull, and sees a face set in neutral, if blue, lines.

"I just wanted to know," Mystique says. She's hurt, Emma can feel, but unsurprised. Emma has a reputation, and not even Magneto cares to spend more time than necessary with her.

When Mystique pads away in bare feet, Emma watches. She ought to forbid Magneto from recruiting more young female mutants until he develops a healthier way of encouraging them to express themselves.

*

"Our next stop is Paris," she informs Magneto at their next meeting. These things are pointless anyway--all he wants to do is avoid Charles Xavier, who has shown no inclination to pursue them thus far. It's the easiest mission Emma has ever undertaken, and most of her previous missions involved floating around on Sebastian Shaw's yacht.

He manages to look halfway elegant and disdainful even in the ridiculous helmet. "What's in Paris?"

"Not Charles Xavier, for starts," she says, then bats her eyelashes when he scowls. Magneto is immune to her feminine wiles, but he does appreciate when people act in predictable ways, and he expects Emma to be little more than a pretty face and a convenient telepath. "Call it an exercise in team bonding. No boys allowed, though. And I'll fund it."

Magneto clenches his jaw and looks away. He has no reason to refuse, no agenda save for wandering as he attempts to think beyond the next place to hide. _Even Sebastian Shaw had a plan,_ Emma wants to tell him sometimes, but then she remembers the feel of metal wrapping around her throat.

"Very well," he grits out. "Have your ladies' day, or whatever you're planning."

"One of us has to plan something," Emma says, because she does anything but play fair.

*

Angel is impressed by the shops of Paris; Mystique, less so.

"I've seen it all before," she explains, fingering the hem of a dress. Angel frowns, but before her discomfort forms a mental accusation of snobbery, Mystique adds, "No offense. It's just that I'm good at clothes. I was wearing miniskirts before they were on the market."

"Scandalized quite a few, I bet," Emma murmurs.

"Not as many as I would have if I were blue. Can I go back to the safehouse? I'm tired of pretending to be normal."

"Speak for yourself," Angel mutters. "Who knows when we'll be able to get free clothes again?"

"Whatever happened to mutant and proud? Don't tell me you'll refuse to sell out to the CIA and then come running when someone waves their wallet in a clothing store."

"Ladies," Emma says, and adds a soothing mental touch for good measure. Mystique and Angel are bickering the way sisters might, setting into familiar conflict patterns, but their mutual annoyance prickles at the edges of Emma's awareness. She could shut them out, but there's still potential for these two to become her foes. Better to shape them with more subtle methods.

Mystique shrugs and hands over the dress to Angel's waiting hands. "If you're trying to get me fancier human camouflage, there's no need."

At Emma's nod, a saleslady comes over to usher Angel into a dressing room."You don't miss your closets full of clothes?" she asks. When Mystique presses her lips together and her mind becomes a welter of stubbornness, Emma adds, "Raven."

Raven remembers being small and naked and cold, able to shapeshift herself the appearance of clothing but owning nothing in reality. Raven had closets full of dresses and jackets and blouses and skirts. Raven had drawers overstuffed with socks and pantyhose and lacy underthings. Raven had shoes that spilled across the floor, much to her brother's consternation whenever he tried to walk in for a chat.

Blinking back tears, Mystique strokes a finger down the front of a mannequin wearing a variation on the little black dress. "I don't want to cover up who I am," she says, voice rough. "The face I'm wearing right now is for purely stealth purposes."

_Of course it is,_ Emma doesn't say, because being patronizing would put Mystique on the defense again. "Darling, it's not about covering it up, it's about crafting an image. When you're in your natural form, anyone can see that you're a mutant, regardless of how many clothes you're wearing. What if we can't recruit other mutants because they think we're a nudist cult?"

"Not that your outfits cover much," Mystique mutters, but she smiles.

*

"It's diamond," Emma says to Mystique much later, when they returned weighed down with shopping bags. Magneto, despite his new preference for hideous clothing and his old preference for traveling light, says nothing of their purchases. Perhaps there's hope for him if he can still appreciate other people dressing well.

Mystique adjusts the strap of her dress, though it doesn't need it. "What?"

"My other form. The name Emma Frost makes people in the know think that I have some sort of powers that have to do with winter." Emma gives herself a onceover in the mirror, frowning at her hair and then pursing her lips. "Everyone else expects me to be some sort of ice queen."

"Is that why you kept your name?"

"My, not even a telepath and you're perceptive." Emma laughs. "You have to wonder the degree to which we create our own images. You, for instance, are sporting a lovely outfit and equally lovely blue skin, but you didn't choose the blue skin."

Defensiveness flares in Mystique's mind. "It's still _mine_."

"So you understand that we do what we can with the choices we are given," Emma says, and then adjusts Mystique's strap herself so she'll stop fiddling with it. "Stop agonizing over leaving your brother. The decision is made. This is who you want to be."

"Who I've chosen to be," Mystique replies, and if she understands that wanting and choosing can be two very different things, well, so much the better for her maturation.

"Choose to be yourself," Emma offers as her last piece of advice. It's rare for her to thaw toward a person to such an extent. There might be some maternal instinct to her after all. "It's what I always do."


End file.
